Photograph
by EvanescentBeauty
Summary: Charlie Dalton has lived with the sad memories of Welton Academy for ten long years, and he hasn't gone a day without thinking of every one of them...but it's time to say goodbye.


**A/N:** I came up with this idea by listening to the song "Photograph" by Nickelback and being overwhelmed by obsessive/depressed DPS feelings. I just thought, wow this would make such a good song for any of the DPS boys from the movie, but especially Charlie. It took me a long time to decide who to write this story about, Knox or Charlie? I finally chose Charlie. Deal. But I will probably have a Knox fic sometime...

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My name is Charlie Dalton. Yesterday, I found a photograph of my best friend, Neil Perry.

Yes, that's right. Charlie Dalton, intrigued by a little black-and-white nothing. Buried in an old shoebox somewhere stuffed under my bed since God knos when...why do the greatest things always end up in shoeboxes? Maybe it's not "great" things that end up there at all...maybe they're just "things". Things that we want to forget, or have no place for. Or, in rare cases, things that we thought we'd remember because we put them _in _"that shoebox" but then they end up getting forgotten about anyway. But how this photograph never found a place in a picture frame on some desk or mantelpiece somewhere is beyond me...but now that I think about it, it's very apparent that it's because I wanted to forget all about it...and that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm _trying _to do anyway.

_Ugh_. Why has it been so hard for me to forget everything? I mean, sure, Mr. Keating was brilliant, and I'll never truly forget all my friends that I gained at Welton (except for maybe Cameron, but who gives a damn about him, really?). I mean, I've known Knox since I was a fetus...our parents have always been friends, and Neil I met in kindergarten, so we had always been buddies, and those three (well, two and a half) years of high school were such a luxurious time for us. We had always planned on going away to college together to become doctors, lawyers, bankers. We'd hate it, we wouldn't want to do it, but we would, because we all knew it was because it was what our parents expected of us. It'd be okay, though...we'd all suffer together, and then forty years from then we'd laugh about how messed up our lives were.That's how it was supposed to be.

But it's been ten years since my junior year at Welton. Ten years! I'm twenty-seven, and I still think about the whole package deal every time I wake up. I dream about it, I think about it, I can't stop worrying about it. I've tried to phone some of my old buddies like Knox, Meeks, and even Todd, but they're just not there anymore. I did see Knox at a play once...it was "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and we had both come with the same motive. I think anybody who knew what we'd been through together would figure out what that reason was. He said he was in town for a college reunion. Chris was there too. Knox, being the steadfast, chivalrous guy that he is, ended up marrying the poor ...they've had a few kids since then. About two, I think, but she was pregnant when I last saw her. As for the rest of them, Todd, Pittsie, Meeks...I don't even know if they still live here. Why would they _want _to live here with all the sick, twisted memories of Neil and of the miserable childhood of Welton? I don't even know why I stayed here. It was stupid, but somehow, I couldn't pull myself away.

I haven't gone back to Welton in four years. I went back there for a little bit, just to see what it was like, how it had changed from 1959 to the seventies. (Ugh..._disco_. It makes me want to puke.) Damn, I've changed. So has the school, that's for sure. It's implausible how much 20 years can be...how short it can seem and yet how much can get done in a ostensibly short amount of time. The school pretty much looks the same, but things have definitely changed about how things are run. Suddenly, smoking is causing lung cancer and heart problems when back in my day it was a cool thing to do. More and more private schools are becoming - (just my luck, eh?) when back in my day it would be "innapropriate". If I sound like I'm turning into a crotchety old man than I'm sorry. But if I keep this up I probably will.

Jesus, I disgust myself.

I'm such a hypocrite. I cry about how I'll never forget them, and yet all I want to do is just that. I bet Knox has moved on. I bet Pittsie has moved on. I bet Meeks has moved on. I'm not so sure about Todd, but he was always a bit feeble. You see? This is what I do with my spare time. Insult the people who were insane enough to associate and befriend me in my adolescence and who literally changed my life forever. I live in the past because I can't forget the past. I haven't even gotten married. Of course, there was Vienne, what was it... six years ago? Yes, there was Vienne, who I could have married. I could have fallen so hard for her and I could have made a life with her, had kids with her...but I didn't. You want to know why? Because I can't drag myself away from these goddamn memories! 1980 is just around the corner, and I'm still in the same place I was when 1960 was a new day.

Dammit, Neil.

When Neil died, everyone was at least thankful that he did it with a gun and not by hanging himself or drowning himself. I remember their words distinctly..."_Quick and painless_." Quick? Painless? I'll tell you what, it wasn't painless, that's for sure. And there was nothing even approaching "quick" after he died. There was the funeral, then the Perry's went to court with Keating which seemed to drag out for an eternity. We all had to testify, including me. They lost, obviously, I don't know how they couldn't have, but Keating was fired nonetheless. Well, don't that just figure?Everything about it was slow, painful and torturous. Nothing quick about it.

_Dammit, _Neil!

Every time I look back, I can't help but think of all the things I could have done differently. There's the simple things, of course; to be less arrogant, less y, not to choke on the bone so much, listen closer to Mr. Keating and to my other teachers, take more notes, get better grades. Not listen to my parents so much, come up with my own two roads and then take the one less traveled. Then, there's the bigger things, the more obvious things; I could have tried to convince Mr. Perry that acting was everything to Neil, that he really _was _doing great in school and deserved a little recreational fun, that Mr. Keating never did anything to Neil. I could have convinced Neil that suicide wasn't the only answer, I could have told him to run away...that if he did that it would all be okay. I could have stopped all of this from happening. Those are the times when I start to blame myself.

But, maybe I should just stop trying to kid myself...stop trying to fight the sad memories...but let them come. Maybe if I do that, it'll all be okay. But for the first five years after Neil's death that's all I did, and I'm still in the same place. I miss him so much. I wish he was here to crack jokes with me, write poetry with me, anything, God dammit. Even a smoke with him would be nice. One of those quiet occasions when we'd sit outside on the porch while our parents chattered about stupid financial , and all we'd do was sit there and smoke. Nothing in the world bothered us. We knew it was all going to be okay. Well if there's one thing I've gotten out of my life, it's that nothing is ever okay. There's always, _always _a catch to anything remotely good in your life, and nothing too wonderful--however simple it may seem or even be-- lasts for long. So maybe I'm doomed. Maybe I'm doomed to eternal wandering in this black hole of hopelessness and...nothing-ness, if you will.

And, of course, just because I forget about them doesn't mean that I can't remember them in good ways...if that makes any sense. Maybe by forgetting, I mean not to think about that so much. Maybe that's what I'm trying to tell myself but just never get it out in time. Maybe outside of all my whining I can see that. Maybe there is some hope. Maybe Neil's death can hold some significance for me. Maybe I can be inspired by what he did till the very end...

But what hope can possibly be gained from giving up?

My name is Charlie Dalton. Yesterday, I found a photograph of my best friend, Neil Perry...Today I am forgetting.

_Every memory of walking out the front door, __I found the photo of the __friend __that I was looking for, __It's hard to say it, __time to say it . . . . ._

_Goodbye..._

_... GOODBYE..._


End file.
